Seminar on gun safety leads to broader discussion of gun violence

Mario Raimato, an officer with the Southern Chester County Regional Police Department, addressed an audience about gun safety on July 26.

By
Richard L. GawStaff
Writer

What
began as a simple discussion about gun safety last Thursday night at
the Quaker Meeting House in West Grove eventually took on the
familiar tone of polarizing opinions that echo the American narrative
on gun violence. It also heard the words of a local police officer,
who shared his unyielding commitment to protecting lives.

Slowly,
it also found a common ground.

Sponsored
by Heeding God's Call to End Gun Violence's “Memorial to the Lost”
tribute to the 53 Chester County residents who have been killed by
guns in the last 10 years, the two-hour seminar invited Officer Mario
Raimato of the Southern Chester County Regional Police Department to
provide tips on how gun owners can better protect their property from
being stolen.

Raimato
emphasized the importance of storing the serial numbers of a gun in a
private place, away from the gun itself, to help identify the gun's
owner in the event of theft, and to help police identify firearms.

“If
you have any handguns or anything of value, write down the serial
numbers. Do not put the serial number list anywhere near the guns,
because if someone steals the guns, they are going to take the
numbers with them,” he said. “Put the numbers in a safe deposit
box at a bank. If I run [a background check on] the guns and it comes
back that it is stolen, then we can better identify and make
arrests.”

During
a question-and-answer period, Raimato addressed questions related to
police training, permits and background checks, and what he saw was a
decrease in gang-related violence in the Regional Police's coverage
zone in the last several years.

During
a discussion about the proliferation and sale of assault weapons in
the area – identified as semi-automatic weapons like the AR-15 –
the mood of the conversation suddenly shifted.

“I
can guarantee that there are AR-15s and AK-47s within 100 yards of
public areas,” said Nick Proietto, a gun owner who assured those in
the audience that no citizen is allowed to buy a fully-automatic
weapon without a Class 3 Federal Firearms license, “which costs
beaucoup bucks and [requires] tons and tons of background checks,”
he said. “Most people can't afford one, so most people don't have
them.”

Proietto
owns four semi-automatic rifles, and said he uses the guns for
enjoyment and recreation. He said he is in favor of their sales, “as
long as you're a law-abiding citizen and do not have a record, I
think you should be allowed to buy a gun.

“You
have every right to oppose so long as you don't stand in my way as
far as my exercising my Second Amendment rights, as long as I am a
law-abiding citizen,” he said. “You can oppose anything you want.
Just don't get in my way and infringe on my rights when it comes to
that, because I am not a criminal. As such, I don't think that it
should be illegal for those who are law abiding. Law abiding people
are not those who are doing crimes and shooting up Las Vegas.”

Proietto
defended the National Rifle Association for its support of the Second
Amendment, which he said supports his rights as a gun owner. One
member of the audience said that the Second Amendment may have been
applicable when the nation's forefathers originally drafted its
content, but that they could not envision a nation where the
flexibility of the law would include semi-automatic weapons.

“My
children in school deserve to be able to school and not have to be
constantly looking over their shoulder to see who is coming into the
building,” the audience member said. “I want my children and my
schools to be safe, and these school shootings, the vast majority
have been done with military style rifles --”

“That's
not true,” Proietto said. “Two percent of mass shootings have
been done by assault weapons. Two percent. Look at the statistics.”

The
conversation took a slight pivot to address the issue of gun violence
by suicide, in order to provide measurable solutions. Raimato was
asked what his department does in terms of risk assessment, and what
citizens can do to alert the police to a potential suicide.

“We
call crisis intervention,” he said. “We're the police. We make
house calls. If I see anyone younger or older – it doesn't matter –
if I see that they need help, it's my job to give them help. Not only
is it my job, it's my duty as a human being.”

“What
can we be doing that we're not, before we get there?” Molly Wood of
Heeding God's Call asked Raimato. “The gun there isn't doing
anything until it gets into the hands of someone who goes to a school
and begins shooting people. What do we do in order to intervene
before that scenario plays itself out?”

Raimato
addressed the question by speaking about recently arresting a teenage
boy.

“He
asked me, 'What are you going to do?'” he said. “I told him,
'You're under arrest.' The tears began rolling down his cheeks. We
need more parents to do what his parents did, which is to call us. I
told him that either one of three things are going to happen to him.
Number one, that he was going to jail. Number two, that he'll end up
dead, and the third is that he will straighten himself out.”

Raimato
told the audience that he intends to see the teenager in the coming
days.

“It's
not my job as a cop,” he said. “It's my job as a human being.”

Raimato
encouraged people to reach out to the proper authorities. “If you
see something, don't put it in Facebook,” he said. “Don't put it
on the message board. Call 911. You not talking to your neighbors
becomes a burglar's best friend.

“We
need to work as a community,” Raimato added. “Do you want to know
the answer to stopping crime? It’s the community within the
community, and looking out for each other.”

At
the conclusion of the meeting, pockets of conversation continued
between those who agreed – and disagreed -- on the many issues.

“Honestly,
I thought it was going to be a liberal bash fest of gun owners and
the Second Amendment,” Proietto said. “I wanted to listen, and if
I had something I felt I needed to say, I was going to put it out
there. If I am open about my opinions, I begin to enlighten people to
my side of the story.”

“Too
often, we live in our separate silos,” said Molly Wood of Heeding
God's Call. “People have their own views but don't talk to those
with other views. It's easy to say 'those crazy liberals' or 'those
crazy NRA people.' We're all labeling, but name-calling and labeling
doesn't lead us to conversations and then to answers.

“The
idea is to bring those people who are gun owners and non-gun owners
and find some common ground, to have conversations to figure out what
we need to do. Whether it’s a comfortable thing for a gun owner to
accept or not, there are truly young people who are afraid to go to
school. It's important for him or her to say, 'I don't want kids to
be afraid, so I need to be a part of a conversation that doesn't
label people as snowflakes, but as people who are genuinely afraid.'”

Theresa
Zunino, a former behavior specialist and therapist, was drawn to
the seminar because she was concerned about gun laws and their
loopholes that allow guns to get into the hands of people with mental
illnesses.

“I
felt like I really know what happens in our community when it comes
to guns,” she said. “I know that our police are there all the
time, but to hear it from Officer Raimato means a lot to me. I think
Mario did a great job in sticking with the facts. It's his job to
give us the information, and he did his job.”